Standing Committee E

[Mr. Christopher Chopein the Chair]

Clause 86

Parenting contracts and parenting orders: further provisions

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 398, in clause 86, page 66, line 21, leave out from ‘authority’ to end of line 24.
It is good to welcome you back to the Chair,Mr. Chope. The clause provides that a magistrates court will be able to take into account non-attendance at a reintegration interview when imposing a penalty order. It also permits regulations to restrict the power to seek a parenting order where the school that a child attends is not in the area or when the child does not reside in the area. The amendment would remove the restriction on seeking a parenting order where the child does not reside in the area of the local authority. If a child is at a school in a local authority area, the fact that that child resides outside that area should be irrelevant to the local authority’s decision.
I note that the power to restrict the actions of the authority with respect to pupils outside its area is not used in the draft Education (Parenting Contracts and Parenting Orders) (England) Regulations. I hope that the Minister can accept the amendment.

Jim Knight: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Chope.
New section 22A of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which the clause inserts, contains a number of regulatory powers that, as we have heard, are intended primarily to avoid duplication in the use of parenting contracts and orders and to ensure that relevant bodies liaise with one another before using the measures. Our intention is that the school or authority in which the child is currently educated should normally take the lead in using the measures, unless the pupil has been permanently excluded from a school outside the authority in which they live, in which case the home authority or the receiving school should normally take the lead.
The exception to those arrangements, which is addressed by the amendment, is where the schools or local authorities have entered into local agreements to the contrary. Such agreements could, for example, be between schools working in partnership or between neighbouring authorities. The indicative regulations to which the hon. Gentleman referred demonstrated those intentions.
As I understand, the hon. Gentleman seeks to remove an aspect of the Government’s proposed regulation-making power, which we believe would prevent us from making comprehensive regulations and lead to a lack of clarity for schools and local authorities about which body ought to take the lead in the various circumstances that I have described. The amendment would make those cross-border collaborations much more difficult to achieve. The regulation-making powers are necessary to provide clarity about how an arrangement agreed between, for example, the education authorities in Dorset county council and Poole borough council would work. I am sure that we all agree that such collaboration can be useful for children where there is a lot of movement across borders, as there is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), for example.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands our intent, can agree with it and will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb: I am grateful to the Minister for setting out that explanation. I understand the Government’s intent, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 86 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 87

Duty of governing body or proprietor where pupil excluded for fixed period

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Nick Gibb: The clause provides that a governing body must provide alternative education for excluded pupils from a day determined in accordance with the regulations. Under the present arrangements, schools only have to send work home for the pupil to complete, although for exclusions longer than 15 days they are expected to ask the local education authority for full-time.
Regulation 3(1) of the draft Education (Provision of Full Time Education for Excluded Pupils) (England) Regulations states that
“the day from which the governing body...is required...to make arrangements...is the relevant day.”
Regulation 3(3) defines “the relevant day” as
“the sixth day of the aggregate number of...days for which he has been excluded.”
That duty does not apply where the pupil is in year 11 and has already taken or has missed all the public examinations for which he was entered. Why does the duty not apply in these circumstances too?

Jim Knight: I was hoping that the in-flight refuelling that has just taken place would give me the answer to that question. Sadly, it did not. While I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that this is a good clause, I cannot give him the answer right now. I will write to him and copy my letter to all members of the Committee. I hope that that will suffice.

Nick Gibb: I am very happy to accept that assurance.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 87 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 88

Duty of local education authority in relation to excluded pupils

Amendment proposed: No. 576, in clause 88, page 68, line 3, at end insert—
‘(3C) A local authority must make an assessment in accordance with section 323 of EA 1996 (assessment of educational needs) of any pupil permanently excluded.'.—[Mrs. Dorries.]

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 12.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Nick Gibb: The clause relates to the duty of the local authority in respect of excluded pupils. The authority must make full-time arrangements for children excluded from schools and pupil referral units who have not been accepted by another school, and for pupils excluded for a fixed period from pupil referral units. That must be done by the prescribed day. It is helpful of the Government to have distributed the draft regulations so that we can look at them in connection with the relevant clause.
Regulation 4 of the draft Education (Provision of Full Time Education for Excluded Pupils) (England) Regulations defines the relevant day as the sixth day of a fixed period exclusion, in the case of pupil referral units, and the sixth day of a permanent exclusion. It also states that where the pupil was temporarily excluded immediately before the permanent exclusion while the behaviour giving rise to the exclusion was being investigated, the duty begins on the sixth day of the temporary exclusion—so it is not necessary to start again once the permanent exclusion begins.
At present there is no statutory time limit on providing that education. All local authorities are currently committed to providing education for permanently excluded pupils from the 16th school day following an exclusion. The regulatory impact assessment states on page 292 at paragraph 19.7:
“A PSA target was introduced in 1999 that by September 2002 all local authorities in England would be providing suitable full time education for their permanently excluded pupils from the sixteenth day following the head teacher’s decision to exclude the pupil. However, this target proved extremely difficult to achieve. At the beginning of 2002 it became clear that a substantial number of local authorities would not meet this critical target despite additional funding. A consultancy firm was engaged to work directly with local authorities and CEOs were asked personally to sign an undertaking to meet it. Although all authorities achieved the target by the specified date they have had difficulties sustaining it and at no time have all 150 local authorities met this commitment.”
Paragraph 19.8 states:
“As far as we are aware, all but two local authorities are currently meeting this commitment although as one authority meets the commitment another is found not to be.”
Given the difficulties that local authorities have had in meeting the 16-day target, even with extra funding, how confident is the Minister that simply making the matter statutory, albeit with a little more funding, will enable local authorities to meet the six-day target?

Annette Brooke: I shall make some brief comments on clause 88—clause 87 flashed past me before I could jump up to speak. I want to put it firmly on the record that we are very supportive of this provision. It is vital to provide full-time education for excluded pupils. Again, we are talking about a slippery slope: once someone is out of education, they never get back. I believe that the hon. Gentleman was right to ask about the details, and I look forward to the Minister’s answer.

David Chaytor: One factor that may have caused the difficulties in reaching the target is the reluctance of some schools to accept pupils who have been excluded from other schools. Although the clause places a welcome new duty on local education authorities, it does not specify how they are expected to fulfil it. I want to mention the role of the protocol for hard-to-place pupils, which some local authorities have already implemented, while others are working on it. It is a crucial part of the range of measures that a local authority can use to fulfil the duty in the clause.
Will my hon. Friend the Minister say something about the Government’s view on the protocols, and if he cannot do so now, will he write to the Committee? I am sure that all members of the Committee recognise that there is increasing concern about the differential distribution of hard-to-place pupils in schools. Some schools display active resistance towards accepting such pupils. The only way to resolve that is by sensible peer group discussion between head teachers and the local authority. The local authority’s role is crucial, but so is a firm steer from the Government.

Jim Knight: It is useful to have had a clause stand part debate, which has not always been a feature of these proceedings, because this is an important move forward to set a much more ambitious requirement—not just a target—for local authorities in respect of their duty to continue the education of excluded pupils. I welcome what hon. Members’ said in welcoming the shift from 16 to six days. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said, it is very important to ensure that we can keep the education of excluded pupils going so that they do not end up becoming permanently excluded from education as a whole.
On the question from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), all but two local authorities are meeting the 16-day target, as he said. At no time have all authorities met the target, but all have met it at some time, if people know what I mean. I am confident that local authorities will meet the new requirement of six days. We are making £16 million of funding available to local authorities to help them to meet the requirement. We will circulate information on good practice in achieving it and we will certainly monitor carefully the progress of local authorities to ensure that these children, who are vulnerable in respect of their education, can be properly served.

John Hayes: The Minister is right: these are vulnerable children. According to his description of the performance of local authorities so far, the position is both variable and fragile, in that authorities are moving in and out of where they ought to be. I suspect that that is because the pressures on them depend on the numbers of excluded children at any one time. My experience of the issue goes back to the time when I was a member of an LEA, and frankly the position historically has not been particularly good. What measures will the Minister put in place to ensure that the House is able to know what the position is? Will he report back regularly on the progress that has been made against the new statutory requirements?

Jim Knight: The hon. Gentleman says that authorities move in and out. Clearly, authorities on the margins are moving in and out, but I am not persuaded that the majority are moving in and out. Clearly for the majority it will be less challenging than for those who are on the margins moving in and out, and we might have to look at how we allocate that £16 million of funding accordingly to assist those that are struggling to fulfil their obligations.
In respect of reporting to the House, I am sure that that is a subject about which hon. Members of all parties will remain concerned and will want to continue to scrutinise Government on. I will seek to assist that scrutiny as and when it comes about, and I am sure that hon. Members will ensure that the House hears from us regularly about how we are doing in this area.
On the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), the Government are strongly encouraging all schools to agree a local hard-to-place pupil protocol to share hard-to-place pupils. That includes any group of pupils that schools may have difficulty placing who seek admission outside the normal admission round, including excluded pupils. Over half of schools have agreed such a protocol, and we expect all schools to do so by September 2007, which is also the time by which we expect all secondary schools to be working in local partnerships to improve behaviour and tackle persistent truancy. We are seeking to co-ordinate those aims and achieve them by September 2007 at the latest. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend and that the Committee will agree that clause 88 should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 88 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 89

reintegration interviews

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 399, in clause 89, page 68, line 16, leave out ‘require’ and insert ‘enable’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 400, in clause 89, page 68, line 17, leave out ‘request’ and insert ‘require’.

Nick Gibb: The clause gives the Secretary of State the power to make reintegration interviews mandatory. The interviews are conducted with the parents of excluded children prior to their readmission to the school. Guidance currently only recommends that schools offer reintegration interviews to parents following an exclusion—they do not have to do it. Often parents do not have to attend and do not attend, although failure to attend such an interview can be taken into account when considering an application for a parenting order, which we discussed on clause 86.
The Steer report recommended this measure in clause 89, and the White Paper recommended that a requirement for parents to attend reintegration interviews be put into legislation. We totally agree with that. The regulatory impact assessment says that legislation is required to make interviews mandatory. Schools that fail to carry them out may be directed to do so by the Secretary of State.
The amendments would enable head teachers to require parents to attend an interview, as opposed to requiring them to request that they do so. We feel that the clause as currently worded is the wrong way round and may not impose a duty on parents to attend these interviews, merely requiring the head teacher to ask them to attend. We feel that to require the head teacher to hold an interview yet not require the parent to attend is to reverse responsibilities. If anyone has discretion over the reintegration interview, it should be the head teacher and not the parents.

Annette Brooke: We strongly support the principles here. This is important. I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman and I see his point, but we need a balance, and it is important to work co-operatively and try to make progress in the best possible way, perhaps achieving a little more before resorting to the parental order. It is a difficult balance, and I can see the argument, but I want to listen to the Minister, because working with the parent until the crunch point is reached will probably achieve more in these circumstances

Jim Knight: We have heard a good explanation of what the amendment is designed to achieve, but I believe that it would undermine the actions that we are taking to implement the recommendation of the practitioners group on school behaviour and discipline, that schools should be required to offer parents reintegration interviews. As we have heard, the amendment would make that a matter for the head teacher’s discretion rather than a requirement.
Our intention is that the interviews be mandatory, with schools being required to offer them and parents being expected to attend them, and that the parent or carer be held accountable for not attending. That is what Steer recommended, and we endorsed it in the White Paper. I recognise that many schools already offer parents reintegration interviews and that it is accepted good practice. That is why we want to ensure that all schools offer them.
Amendment No. 400 is unnecessary. It states that parents should be required to attend an integration interview. If we were to do that, there would need to be a commensurate penalty for non-attendance, such as a fixed penalty notice fine, because failure to attend would be a breach of the law. We have already considered that possibility, but decided that it would be excessive and inappropriate. Furthermore, a requirement to be in a particular place at a particular time would risk violating article 5, the liberty section, of the European convention on human rights.
There are provisions in the Bill, however, that allow for a legal consequence should the parent fail to attend, to which the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton referred. Clause 86(2) states that the failure of a parent to attend a reintegration interview may be taken into account by magistrates when deciding whether to make a parenting order. In view of that, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment, and that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole is satisfied with my explanation and will support the clause.

Nick Gibb: I am grateful for that response to the amendments. I think that parents should be held accountable, and that the way in which to achieve that would be to make the interviews mandatory. Rather than imposing a criminal penalty, such an interview could be a condition of re-entry for the child.
We shall have to see how the provision works in practice, and whether we find that parents do not attend the interviews. If the reality is that they do attend, there will not be a problem to address. We shall monitor the position, but in view of the Minister’s confidence that there is not a problem with not requiring parents to attend reintegration interviews, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 89 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 90

Duty of parent in relation to excluded pupil

Edward Leigh: I beg to move amendment No. 375, in clause 90, page 69, line 3, leave out subsections (3) to (6).
I thought that it would be useful to have a little debate on clause 90, because it restricts traditional civil liberties and we should not simply let it go through on the nod.
Subsections (1) and (2) require the parent of a child excluded from school to ensure that the child is not in any public place in the first five days of their exclusion. Subsection (7) defines “public place” as virtually anywhere other than the child’s own home or, presumably, garden. I suppose that most people would find that sensible. After all, presumably we do not want an excluded child to think that they are on holiday—exclusion must be some sort of punishment. Most people might think that if a child has been excluded, it is no bad thing if he is kept at home, and that that should be a deterrent or punishment tied up with the exclusion. Otherwise, the child might view it as an opportunity to go to the cinema or wander the streets.
I imagine that most people would be quite happy with that sentiment, but then we move on to the middle part of clause 90. This is a probing amendment, but it raises the serious issue of what is effectively an extension of the criminal law. The subsections that I want to leave out may, I believe, go too far. Obviously, by definition, the excluded pupil is difficult, if not downright impossible, and will probably take no notice of any penalty suffered by his parents, so long as he does not suffer himself.
The measure that we are to pass today provides:
“If the excluded pupil is present in a public place at any time during school hours on a school day falling within subsection (2), the parent commits an offence”
unless they have
“a reasonable justification for failing to comply with the duty imposed by that subsection.”
We are creating another offence.

Angela Smith: We must hold parents accountable for the behaviour of their children, and many excluded children are not kept within proper boundaries by their parents, and roam the streets and threaten other children who are behaving themselves and attending school. Many of the children who are excluded from our schools are bullies who continue to bully children even though they have been excluded from school, so it is important that we let the clause stand. What does the hon. Gentleman think of that?

Edward Leigh: That is right—we all know that—but the hon. Lady’s point is not so much a question to me as a debating point that she could make in her own time. We all know that many excluded children are absolutely impossible and make life hell for their parents and other kids, and we all know that the parents of many excluded children are irresponsible, but for all that, this is the House of Commons, and the point of this place is to protect people’s civil liberties. Before we rush into making law, let us just think it through and have a little debate on it.

Nadine Dorries: I would like to the state for the record that not all excluded children have behavioural problems. Many of them—the figures are huge—have special educational needs. If their needs had been addressed sufficiently, they might not have been excluded in the first place.

Edward Leigh: Of course, that is a point. We cannot generalise and say that all excluded children, or their parents, are utterly irresponsible. There are many reasons why children might be excluded.
Even if the parent is responsible and tries to keep the child in, he could easily escape from home. Those things happen. To fine such parents—we are talking about an offence for which there will be fines, rather than a rap over the knuckles or being summoned to see the head teacher—when the excluded child escapes from home and plays in the park or loiters in the street could make matters worse. After all, will an impossible child change his behaviour just because mum has been fined? Do we really believe that? Often, in such cases, mum is in severe personal difficulties: that might be the reason why the child has behavioural problems and has been excluded in the first place. The child probably will not change his behaviour because mum has been fined, but fining mum might put her into even more difficulties, and so the vicious circle continues.
A more subtle approach might be needed, but I do not have a solution. I suppose that putting the child into some kind of sin bin would be considered to be politically incorrect nowadays and would be opposed by the Children’s Commissioner, so we apparently are not going to go down that route, we are just going to make ourselves all feel better by creating another offence. We know that there is a real problem in society. How many criminal justice Bills have we had in the past 10 or 15 years? How many more offences have we created? Does anybody actually believe that putting another offence on the statute book will make a great deal of difference?
I have doubts about the concept of house arrest. I do not like it; it does not traditionally figure in our common law. House arrest has the connotations of some rather unpleasant regimes, which I need not go into.
Like you, Mr. Chope, I was taught when reading for the Bar that when a person commits an offence, he commits an offence because he is committing an offence—he is causing harm to other people and, because he is an adult, the criminal law bites. Therefore, I have doubts about generic offences.

Nick Gibb: I am listening very carefully to my hon. Friend. I gave the clause a great deal of thought when we were considering whether to table amendments to it. I do not see how, in terms of liberty, the situation differs in any way from the offence of truancy. Parents are committing an offence if they do not send their child to school. How is this different? The only reason a specific offence is needed in this instance is that we are dealing with pupils who are excluded from school and who are, by definition, not committing an offence by not being at school. I cannot see the difference in constitutional terms.

Edward Leigh: There may be a slight difference. A parent still—thank God—has the right to educate their child at home, if he or she wishes to do so, but there is, rightly, an offence of truancy. There is general public acceptance that a parent has a duty to get his or her child to school. We are debating an extension of that—the creation of a new offence. The child has been excluded and has been put under what is, in effect, house arrest, and the parent—in many cases a parent who is in severe personal difficulties—is now to be fined if the child escapes from home. Any parent here will know that it is not always easy to keep a child in. Homes are not prisons. We should think this through before we rush to put it on the statute book. Are parents going to lock the doors to keep the child in? Presumably if a parent goes out shopping and his child wanders out into the street, that parent will be committing an offence. The proposed measure is an interesting extension to the criminal law, is it not?

Nick Gibb: I pick up on my hon. Friend’s point about creating personal difficulties for the parents. I have constituents who are in enormous personal difficulties because they cannot send their children to school, because their children are being bullied at school by the type of children that the clause deals with.

Edward Leigh: I am not defending bullies. It is a very good idea not to allow a child who is excluded to roam the streets. All that I am saying is that the clause—it will be agreed to; I will probably not even press the amendment to a vote—is another extension of the criminal law, and it is incumbent on us to ask the Minister what he means by it. There is no point in putting it on the statute book unless he is prepared to enforce it. We all know what is going on in the Home Office. So many duties are imposed on the Home Office, the police and everybody else that it is increasingly difficult to enforce the legislation that we already have. Perhaps the best thing that this Parliament or any future Parliament could do would be to pass no legislation at all for the next five years, but simply ensure that what we have on the statute book is enforced.
To convince us that he can enforce the measure, the Minister will probably say that the police and local authorities will be able to take the circumstances into account and consider whether there has been an honest attempt by the parent to keep the child at home. Let us hear what he has to say. However, I, as one who was brought up to be a traditional Tory, believe that our duty here in the House of Commons is to protect civil liberties. We live in a liberal democracy and I do not believe that we are here just to make ourselves feel good. The reason why there are such problems in society is not that there are too few laws or too few offences, but that society is dysfunctional in many ways. Many people think that society gives them rights but not responsibilities or duties. We all know that those problems are far greater than anything that we can solve in this room today.

John Hayes: For the second time in a few days my hon. Friend and I disagree. The dysfunctionality that he describes is not a feature of people having too little liberty; it is a consequence of their having too much. What society needs—and children doubly so—is order, security and discipline and, as he said, a sense of responsibility. The Government recognise that, and it seems to be what they are encouraging.

Edward Leigh: Well, if we disagree, we disagree. Of course, we all want children to be well behaved, and have ordered lives and caring parents. We all want parents to take their child to school in the morning as my mother, and your mother, Mr. Chope, used to do, and preferably to pick them up in the afternoon. We were brought up in loving families; when we came home mum was already there with the tea. But that is the dream world, not the real world that people in many parts of the country live in today. An attempt to impose our will in the way proposed raises serious questions about enforceability, which we should at least debate before we accept the clause.

Sarah Teather: I have great sympathy with the sentiments voiced by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and I share his anxieties about the clause, although I completely understand its intentions. I wholly agree that if a child has done something so serious that the consequences are exclusion from school, it is important to involve the parents, who should know the reasons for the exclusion and take responsibility for their child. However, in many cases the breakdown in the child’s behaviour will be the result of problems at home.
My concern centres on the definition of reasonable justification, and I hope that the Minister will reply to my questions on the matter. The clause states that an offence will have occurred unless there is “reasonable justification” for the parent being unable to keep the child away from a public place, but it is not clear to me exactly what that means. For example, will it cover a single parent who is paid by the hour and is unable to take five days off work to look after the child? What would be the consequences for the child’s welfare if there were a substantial drop in income? Is the proposal actually realistic?

Nick Gibb: I have had constituency cases of parents who cannot send their children to school because of bullying. They face all the problems that the hon. Lady highlighted. We need to tackle those problems first before we start worrying about the parents of children who cause problems at school.

Sarah Teather: The hon. Gentleman makes a very trite point. I was just as irritated when he intervened on his hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. No one is questioning the need to tackle bullying or bad behaviour in schools. We are asking whether the proposal is enforceable and practical and what will be the consequences of applying the offence to vulnerable families. I am not questioning the need to take serious action, and the hon. Gentleman’s intervention was unjustified.
My concerns are about what would qualify as reasonable justification. Are we talking about severe financial penalties on a family that is already on a low income? What about a child who is already so out of control that the parent is unable to keep that child at home? Let us suppose that the child in question is a physically strong teenager. Parents in my constituency have come to see me to express huge concern about their children’s behaviour: they have been physically threatened, perhaps even with a knife or a gun, because the children are on drugs and they have been stealing from the parents. What are the consequences for such parents if they are unable to keep their child at home? There are parents in such circumstances.
Although I am sympathetic to the Government’s intentions, I am extremely worried about the practical implications of the clause. I will need considerable reassurance from the Minister if I am to support the clause.

Angela Smith: I apologise for the lack of clarity in my intervention. I support the clause, but, like the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, I challenge the notion that it offers a legal power that is any different from that which applies to the responsibilities of parents whose children are truanting. It is the same concept; it offers the same legal penalty for, in effect, the same offence.
The argument advanced by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), that the parents of children who are excluded may not be able to take time off work to look after their children when they are excluded from school, does not stand the test. If we are saying that parents cannot be held responsible because they have to work, we throw into doubt the entire power of exclusion. We as an authority—as a Government—and schools would be putting children at risk if we accepted that parents need not take responsibility for their children by making appropriate arrangements if they are excluded. That would be legally challengeable.
In this modern era of education, and certainly since 1997 and the advent of the Labour Government, many measures have been put in place that should minimise the number of exclusions. The hon. Member for Gainsborough mentioned sin bins. The proper term is learning support units and they were introduced in 1997 the under excellence in cities programme as part of a range of measures for learning mentors for the gifted and talented. Pupil referral units, mentioned in the Bill, are used both pre-exclusion and post-exclusion to cater for children who have difficulties in school. We also have the hospital and home education service. With the advent of children’s services, we surely have the best chance for a generation to ensure that the whole package of measures introduced since 1997 works to minimise exclusion.
The fact remains, however, that some children continue to pose a problem to their school and to the other children there. My husband is 6 ft 4 in tall, and he was challenged with a knife in a school playground two years ago by an excluded child. The playground was being opened in front of a number of councillors and council officials. That child was able to come into the playground and challenge my husband; the child had no fear whatever. My husband was later challenged by another excluded pupil who was bullying his own daughter. We must think of those children before we vote against the clause.

Nadine Dorries: I fully sympathise with the hon. Lady. For children who have been excluded for malicious or violent behaviour, the clause is justifiable. However, two thirds of children excluded from school have special needs. As I said yesterday, 27 per cent. of autistic children are excluded from mainstream schools: today, 27 per cent. of autistic children are not attending school. The parents of such children have an incredibly difficult job. I am loath to mention the mother of the autistic child who recently committed suicide, but had the boy been excluded? What sort of difficulties was the mother battling against? Would she have been subject to the provisions of the clause?
The Minister will probably say that we have spoken previously about introducing behaviour management policies. However, Sir Alan Steer told journalists this morning that he was specifically asked not to include special needs children in his report—a report that informs the Bill’s provisions on excluded pupils. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s point of view, because we are introducing a policy that will affect a huge number of parents. The parents of children with special needs are already battling against the odds—they probably have to fight every day for their children to receive appropriate education. How should the parent of a child with emotional and behavioural difficulties restrain that child in the home and stop it moving to a public place?
We are dealing with an incredible number of problems. We are talking not only about children who behave badly, who bully, or who enter school playgrounds with knives. We are talking about children who have deep problems. Some of those problems are associated with language and speech difficulties. Some of the children will not understand that what they are doing is wrong.
The Minister has been incredibly generous and compassionate in his attitude towards special needs children. I am heartened by the fact that he seems to understand the problem, and I will be very interested to hear his response.

David Chaytor: I come to this important debate from a slightly different point of view. The issue of excluded children was considered in some detail by the Education and Skills Committee when we considered the proposals in the White Paper. The Committee said that there would be serious practical difficulties in implementing those proposals. Perhaps the greatest argument that could be made in favour of clause 90 is that the practical difficulties of implementation would be so great as to discourage schools from excluding so many pupils.
I acknowledge the dilemma that will face the parents of a child who is out of control—who has over time behaved in ways that are completely beyond the capacity of trained, experienced school professionals to control—if they are forced at short notice or immediately to keep that child under house arrest for a fixed period of time. That is difficult. I also acknowledge the comments by the hon. Member for Brent, East about the impact on parents—particularly single parents—who work all the hours God sends for the minimum wage. How can they reasonably be expected to get out of work? What are the consequences for their future employment prospects if they have to drop everything at short notice to take responsibility for keeping their child at home for that five-day period? The definition of “reasonable justification” in subsection (3) is important. Would a parent be able to claim reasonable justification for not complying because they simply cannot get out of work, or they fear the consequences for their future employment if they leave work on that day?
I specifically want to draw attention to the definition of the five-day period. In subsection (6), it is quite clear that if a child is excluded in the morning, the afternoon is the starting-point of that period. A child could be excluded at 11.55 am with that day’s afternoon session being counted as the first half-day of the five-day period. That seems to make it even harder reasonably to expect the parent to take responsibility for that child at 1pm if the exclusion was at that time. The position is further complicated by clause 91, which requires head teachers to issue a notice to parents specifying the terms of the exclusion. Perhaps I have misread or misunderstood that completely but I do not understand how, if a child can be excluded in the morning with the five-day period beginning that afternoon, the head teacher can, during a lunch time period and without knowing where the parent is, issue a notice to the parent informing them of the start of that period. The practical difficulties of implementation seem to make that requirement almost unworkable.
I acknowledge the comments made by the hon. Member for Gainsborough on the legal implications and the temptation that we in government frequently face—the temptation to pass new laws and assume that that solves the problem, without trying to get to the root of it or considering the detailed implications of those new laws—I am particularly concerned about the detail of how the measure would be implemented given the definition of the five-day period and requirement to issue the notice.

Jim Knight: Perhaps we should be grateful to the hon. Member for Gainsborough for stimulating this useful debate. I detect that the hon. Gentleman may not be speaking for his party, given the interventions from his Front-Bench colleagues. It might be interesting if he were, given that he wants no laws to be passed for five years. Perhaps that makes sense, since we are familiar with the notion that there are no policies. However, I note that the hon. Gentleman was not speaking from the Front Bench so I will not labour the point.
Clause 90—as we have heard—creates a new duty for parents to ensure that their child is not present in a public place during school hours during the first five days of exclusion. The amendment would mean that while the parent had that duty, there would be no consequence for them if they failed in it. The hon. Gentleman has explained that he is not sure whether he is precisely right, but he wanted to air the debate and that has been done.
The clause does not state that the child must be at home. It does not impose house arrest, or state that the excluded pupil should be locked up at home. Indeed, there might be some difficulty in terms of false imprisonment, for example, if that were to be done. The Government simply want to ensure that the child is safe and properly supervised, and is not in a public place causing a problem.
I stress that the clause applies only to normal school hours, and, as the hon. Member for Brent, East and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North have discussed, it allows a defence of reasonable justification. The hon. Lady is right to focus on that phrase, because it is critical to making the measure workable. It is fair to ask what would constitute reasonable justification. We recognise that in some circumstances it may be necessary for a child to be out in a public place on a day when they are excluded. They might, for example, have a pre-arranged medical appointment or there might be a medical emergency needing immediate attention. Similarly, there might be a pressing need for the parent to seek medical help, and they might think it inappropriate to leave the child at home unattended and be unable to make alternative arrangements.
More to the point, as was mentioned by the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend—whose comments I always have to take seriously, in the light of his knowledge and experience—the older and larger the child and the more difficult it is physically to compel him to remain at home, the more likely it is that the parent will be able to claim a defence of reasonable justification. The courts will have to interpret that, but if it is unreasonable to expect a parent—perhaps a frail parent—to restrain a large, strong and burly child, who, as the hon. Lady described, might be armed or under the influence of drugs, that may well be a reasonable justification that the court would bear in mind.

Sarah Teather: Will the Minister consider issuing some guidelines before Report stage? We support the principle of getting parental involvement after a child is excluded, but we are concerned about the vagueness of the term, and the considerable distress that might be caused to a family for the long period that might be needed to take the matter through the courts, when there might be a perfectly reasonable justification for the child’s being in a public place.

Jim Knight: I am certainly willing to look at the draft guidance that we have published and to reflect on our debate in that respect. Perhaps all members of the Committee would like to examine the guidance. If they think that there is a problem with it, I hope that they will feel free to contact me and let me know.

John Hayes: Bowing to the pressure from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and the hon. Member for Brent, East, the Minister has just told the Committee that reasonable justification might include the inability to deal with any child who displayed extreme disruptive tendencies, if they were strong and big and so on. That description might be applied to any child—certainly any boy—over the age of 12 of the type likely to be excluded for exactly those reasons. Is that not an all-embracing justification that will make the law almost impossible to enforce?

Jim Knight: No, I do not think so. The courts will have to make a judgment about whether a parent has taken reasonable steps, given their and the child’s circumstances. There may be circumstances in which dealing with the matter will be genuinely difficult for the parent. The courts and the guidance will have to be sensitive to that. I hope that all members of the Committee will consider the matter on that basis.
The report of the practitioners group on school behaviour and discipline, chaired by Sir Alan Steer, made several recommendations designed to make exclusion from school a more effective sanction. The group believed that it was important that excluded pupils should not waste time wandering the streets and making a public nuisance of themselves. Its view, which we share, is that in a democratic society parents must take responsibility for their children. The Steer group recommended that parents should be responsible for ensuring that their child is properly supervised during the first five days of exclusion and that the child attends appropriate provision from the sixth day. As we have heard, we are changing the law to bring it to the sixth day.
I listened to the points made by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mrs. Dorries), which we largely discussed yesterday. I said then that the Steer report stated that further, more detailed work was needed to consider issues involving SEN pupils, and that is certainly something that I want to pursue.

Annette Brooke: I have a question about the extremely difficult cases where the parent cannot control the child, for whatever reason. Does the Minister envisage any particular support, such as a hotline, being made available? To take us back to yesterday’s debate, how will he ensure that a multidisciplinary approach is taken and that social services are fully involved? I would like to see more of that in guidance, as well.

Jim Knight: That is certainly something that I can consider. The Government, through the respect agenda, are seeking to bring together the various elements of Departments, local government and so on in order to tackle some of the serious problems that are causing a nuisance and worse to our constituents. We acknowledge that some of the children in question are very vulnerable and we have heard that some have specific needs that need to be addressed. That can only be done in the round and I am certainly happy to look closely at how we engage with all agencies to try to minimise the effects of such problems.

Nadine Dorries: Will the Minister clarify whether Alan Steer’s further report on children with special educational needs will be ready by Third Reading? Given that two thirds of excluded children have special needs, the Steer report has only considered one third of the children who are excluded. Sir Alan was asked expressly not to look at children with special educational needs, as was confirmed this morning. Why has he produced a report on only a third of excluded children?

Jim Knight: As I said, we discussed this at some length yesterday. Perhaps at this early stage in my ministerial position I am guilty of having exhausted my knowledge and thoughts with what I said to the hon. Lady yesterday. She has certainly been successful in persistently and consistently raising such points and causing me to want to reflect on them. I promise her that I will do that.

John Hayes: The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole makes a powerful point about the mechanisms that might be put in place to allow co-ordination between different agencies and support for parents in such circumstances. Is the Minister prepared to consider addressing those specific points in guidance? The “Every Child Matters” agenda, with the subsequent structural changes in local authorities, will help, but it seems to me that, particularly in relation to this part of the Bill, guidance would be helpful for all concerned.

Jim Knight: As I have said, we have published the draft guidance. I shall reread the report of the debate and ensure that when I agree the final guidance, the comments that have been made and reasonable points that have been raised are properly dealt with.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) effectively outlined the measures that we were taking to minimise exclusions and the way in which we have sought to address the problem.
Mr. Hayesindicated assent.

Jim Knight: I see the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings nodding; he acknowledges that some progress has been made in that area.
Parents must take their responsibilities seriously. We have made it clear that we expect parents to take responsibility for excluded pupils in the first five days of their exclusion by ensuring that they are doing school work and not wondering the streets. Under current arrangements, parents might have to take time off work to attend to their excluded children in the initial stages of exclusion. That was a point of concern raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North.
We are not requiring parents to take time off work. They will have to ensure only that adequate supervision is in place, and that could be provided by another relative or responsible adult. Where a child is excluded from school, the parent can rely on the right to time off work for dependants to deal with the situation when it first arises and to put care arrangements in place. That is the advice that we have received, and I hope that that is helpful.
I accept that that arrangement might involve a loss of income for some parents, which is a real issue given the concentration of exclusions in areas and families suffering from deprivation. However, in the context of reasonable justification, it will be incumbent on those involved to assess whether an individual has made every reasonable effort to find alternative arrangements for the supervision of their children. Again, we should all reflect on that, and the courts will have to do so in time.
I hope that I have said enough in responding to this useful debate to encourage the hon. Member for Gainsborough to withdraw the amendment.

Edward Leigh: I am grateful that the Minister will bring out draft guidance. He is between a rock and a hard place on this issue, because some of these kids are physically difficult to control. However, if people have a blanket excuse that their son is over 12 and, by definition, quite strong, they will not comply with the clause and there could be very few prosecutions indeed.
None the less, the Minister has given a characteristically good summing-up. We have had a good debate and have aired the difficulties of enforceability and reasonable justification, which are important. I might table a parliamentary question in a year’s time to see how many people have been prosecuted under the clause, and I suspect that very few will have been, for all the reasons we have discussed. However, we shall see.
Having said that, there is one area of consensus, and we all agree that we want to promote parental responsibility. Some of us are worried—we have said so already, and there is no point labouring the issue—about how the criminal law can be made to work in this difficult social area.

John Hayes: Of course every exclusion is a little tragedy for a family, and the people we are discussing are often vulnerable—I am particularly concerned about special needs children and the volume of exclusions among young black people—but the law must have force in this respect if we are to encourage the responsibility that my hon. Friend seeks. I hope he will come round to my view that people want certainty and security, not ever more unbridled liberty.

Edward Leigh: I believe that more liberty engenders more responsibility, which is why I am a Liberal Democrat on this issue, as well as a traditional Conservative—if that is possible, and I think it is. My hon. Friend and I have so many things in common, but we differ slightly on these issues, which is something we shall have to live with.
Lastly, I am grateful that the Minister is thinking not simply about house arrest, but about other ways of proceeding. We have had a good debate, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 90 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 91 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 92

Penalty notice in respect of presence of excluded pupil in public place

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 401, in clause 92, page 71, line 1, leave out
‘(other than a pupil referral unit)'.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 402, in clause 92, page 71, line 3, leave out
‘(other than a pupil referral unit)'.

Nick Gibb: The clause provides authorised officers with the power to give penalty notices where a parent fails to ensure that their excluded child is not in a public place, and it follows on very much from the debate that we have just had. Under the definition in subsection (7), an authorised officer means a constable, as one would expect, but also
“an officer of a local education authority...who is authorised by the authority to give penalty notices, or an authorised staff member”.
An authorised staff member is then defined as
“a head teacher of a relevant school in England”
but, in parenthesis,
“other than a pupil referral unit”
or
“a member of the staff of a relevant school in England (other than a pupil referral unit) who is authorised by the head teacher of the school to give penalty notices”.
The amendment is probing as we want to find out why subsection (7) excludes the head teachers and staff members at pupil referral units from issuing notices. I do not understand why that should be the case. When I first read the clause, I thought that it was because pupil referral units could not exclude pupils. However, later in the Bill, there is mention of what happens when pupils are excluded from a pupil referral unit, so obviously that is not the reason. I am very interested to know why those staff members are excluded.

Jim Knight: The amendment would allow the teacher in charge to be automatically designated as a person who may issue a penalty notice, rather than his having to be designated as such by the relevant local authority, because a reference to a head teacher is taken as being a reference to the teacher in charge of a pupil referral unit under schedule 1 of the Education Act 1996.
The teacher in charge will also be able to authorise other members of the PRU to give penalty notices. That offers advantages. It means that authorities will not have to put in place designation processes, and teachers in charge of PRUs will have the same powers as head teachers of maintained schools when it comes to issuing penalty notices to a person guilty of an offence under clause 93. Furthermore, it will ensure that penalty notices issued under these provisions are treated consistently with those issued under section 23 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. Parliamentary scrutiny is a wonderful thing. These are excellent amendments and I am happy to accept them.

Nick Gibb: I am shocked, and very pleased. I thought that I had misread something somewhere, and I am delighted to hear the Minister’s response.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 402, in clause 92, page 71, line 3, leave out
‘(other than a pupil referral unit)'.—[Mr. Gibb.]

Clause 92, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 93 to 95 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 96

Sums received under section 444A of Education Act 1996

Nick Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 404, in clause 96, page 73, line 30, leave out ‘may' and insert ‘must'.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 403, in clause 96, page 73, line 30, leave out from ‘section' to ‘must' in line 33.

Nick Gibb: Flushed with success, I live with high expectations. Subsection (6) of section 444A of the 1996 Act states:
“Sums received by a local education authority under this section may be used by the authority for the purposes of any of its functions which may be specified in regulations”.
The Bill amends that by stating that funds that are not spent by the local education authority must be paid to the Secretary of State. That is all to do with the proceeds of the penalty notices that we have been discussing. I am not sure how much money there will be if my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough is right.
Amendment No. 404 would leave out “may” and insert “must”. “May” is usually used to imply thatthe requirement is optional. The draft Education Penalty Notices (England) Regulations 2007 state, at regulation 22:
“Any sums received by local education authorities by way of penalties must be applied in meeting the costs of issuing and enforcing notices, or the cost of prosecuting recipients who do not pay.”
So, “may” is not used in the draft regulations. Contrary to the Bill, the regulations do not appear to require local authorities to pay the money to the Secretary of State if it is not used in that manner.
Can the Minister confirm that there will be a requirement for any surplus to be handed over to the Exchequer regardless of what the regulations say? I am concerned that we should avoid the perverse incentives that arise when bodies that levy fines benefit from their proceeds. I strongly believe that, regardless of the issue, whether it concerns education or parking, the proceeds of any fine levied by a body other than the courts should not go to that body. That is why we end up with traffic wardens trawling quiet residential streets at8.31 am to pile on parking fines—not to clear roads to allow traffic to flow freely, but to raise revenue for local authorities. The decision to allow local authorities to keep that revenue created all those perverse incentives.

John Hayes: I do not want to disagree with my hon. Friend, having already disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, but surely there is an argument that the money raised in fines in a particular area should be spent in a relatively similar area. If money is simply absorbed by the Government, it will be spread all over the place. Is there not an argument for hypothecation?

Nick Gibb: There is, but it is not one that I accept. There is an adage of common law that goes back centuries: the body that levies the fine should not benefit from the proceeds of that fine. Since I have been in the House, I have tried to make that point at every relevant opportunity because it is a terribly important principle of law and governance. This happens too often, and it will happen under the Bill.

Sarah Teather: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Gibb: I give way to the hon. Lady with trepidation for fear of the trite comments I might receive.

Sarah Teather: Actually, I was going to make a trite but sympathetic comment on the division between the two Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen, on the basis that I agree with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and my colleague the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole agrees with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings.

Nick Gibb: Now I feel guilty about my ungracious acceptance of the hon. Lady’s intervention. I do not think that we need apply collective responsibility to our debates on these important and interesting issues of principle.
I have said enough on the point. I am not convinced that people are likely to trawl the streets and other public places looking for excluded pupils to raise millions of pounds for local authorities or schools, but I make the general point that it is important to separate those who benefit from fines from the bodies that levy them.

Annette Brooke: I accept the point about traffic wardens trawling for fines, but perhaps this matter is rather different. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the local authorities kept the money it could be well invested in behaviour strategies in schools, into which we need to put a lot more money and support?

Nick Gibb: I am grateful for that intervention, but I would prefer the regulations to have incorporated the provision that any surplus after the costs of issuing penalty notices and mounting prosecutions had been defrayed should be returned to the Exchequer. I hope to receive that reassurance from the Minister.

Edward Leigh: We should be grateful to my hon. Friend for initiating this debate, because it takes us on an interesting philosophical quest. The last debate was a sort of moral maze, and this one also raises practical points.
It is difficult to understand how my hon. Friends the Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for South Holland and The Deepings, who share collective responsibility on the Front Bench, could reach slightly different, nuanced opinions on this, but that is the joy of opposition: it does not really matter what we say as we are not going to implement any of our views—at least not for another two or three years—so we can say what we like. Perhaps I, too, should have a different, nuanced opinion, just to create a tripartite structure in the Conservative party.
The trouble is that we constantly say that we want local authorities to be given more powers and we want to allow them to raise more money locally—we are all, in theory, in favour of that concept—yet we introduce legislation that makes it more difficult for money raised locally through fines or other means to stay in the locality. We have to face that dilemma.
Having said that, on balance I am with my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. I veer towards his view slightly, if only because he may be a more important person in the parliamentary party than my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, so I want to curry favour with him at this time. Although I agree that this provision will not raise a great deal of money and we need not worry about it, the public are worried, particularly in respect of matters such as parking fines, that local authorities may be a tiny bit too assiduous on occasion. That may be because they feel that money raised from the long-suffering public will stay with local government. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton raises a serious and important point: those who impose fines, unless they are the central criminal authorities, should not benefit from imposing them. This has been a useful debate and I hope that the Minister makes a good response so that we can find a way forward.

Jim Knight: It is tempting for all Government Members to leave the Room so that you, Mr. Chope, can exercise your casting vote on what the Conservative policy should be, but I shall explain the purpose of the clause. It enables the Secretary of State to specify in regulations the purposes for which sums received by local authorities from paid penalty notices can be used and—I think this is the reassurance the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton wants—it provides for any sums not used for those purposes to be returned to the Treasury. That is our clear policy. It is a technical matter and I could say many technical things about it, but I hope that I have given the hon. Gentleman, clearly and succinctly, the reassurance that he wants and that he will withdraw the amendment so that we can deal with the remaining amendments in the time left.

Nick Gibb: I am grateful for the Minister’s response and assured by it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 96 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 97 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 45

Home-school contracts
‘(1) Section 111 of SSFA 1998 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit subsections (4)(b), (4)(c) and (5).
(3) After subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) A governing body of a school to which section 110(1) applies or the local education authority where it is the admission authority for such a school may make it a condition of being admitted to the school that the parental declaration is signed in respect of the child.”
(4) In the heading of sections 110 (home-school agreements) and 111 (supplementary provisions about home-school agreements) for “agreements” substitute “contracts”.'.—[Mr. Gibb.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Nick Gibb: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has supported this proposal for some time and he recently reaffirmed his support when launching the Conservative party’s charter for inner-city schools. The new clause is designed to improve behaviour in schools by giving them the power to make the signing of the parental declaration of the home-school agreement a condition of admittance. It would also remove the prohibition on sanctioning pupils whose parents fail to sign the contract.
Home-school agreements were introduced as part of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and each maintained school and academy is expected to adopt a home-school agreement, setting out the aims and values of the school, the responsibilities of the school and of the parent, and the expectations of the conduct of pupils at the school. The parent is asked to sign the parental declaration, which indicates that they acknowledge and accept their responsibilities and the expectations of their child’s conduct.
There is, however, no requirement that parents sign the parental declaration, and governing bodies are expressly forbidden to use home-school agreements as part of their admissions process, or to sanction pupils whose parents fail to sign them. As such, home-school agreements lack any weight, and public opinion is that many of them are not worth the paper they are printed on. Only when a child has been engaging in serious misbehaviour is a more drastic option, such as a parenting contract, a parenting order or exclusion, considered.
Our position is clear. As the Leader of the Opposition said in a speech in Leeds on 4 April, if parents and children do not sign up to a code of behaviour and stick to it, they cannot attend. That is clear. We believe that schools should be able to make acceptance of the home-school agreement or contract a condition of admittance to a school. If parents want their child admitted to a school they should be willing actively to subscribe to that school’s value and ethos. I do not believe that any parents will refuse to sign the agreements, but by making it a condition it gives that contract added bite. Parents will then not regard it as not worth the paper it is printed on.
Our amendment does not remove any of the existing safeguards on the contents of home-school agreements in the legislation. Subsection (2) of section 111 states:
“If the Secretary of State by order so provides, the governing body of a school to which subsection (1) of that section applies shall ensure that any form of words—
(a) specified in the order, or
(b) having such effect as is so specified,
is not used in the home-school agreement or (as the case may be), in a parental declaration”.
There is no possibility therefore, provided that the guidance is properly drafted, that schools will be able to use the power to exclude pupils for the purposes of social exclusion. I hope that that will satisfy the hon. Member for Bury, North that this is not the purpose of this new clause; it is not there to try and enable schools to manipulate their intake so that they can achieve better results in the raw figure league tables, it is there to try to improve behaviour in schools. Behaviour in our schools is a concern that teachers, head teachers and parents raise continuously. We have to tackle it and sometimes we have to take draconian measures to ensure that we have good behaviour in our schools.

Sarah Teather: I made most of my arguments when we debated this point regarding admissions. I will not repeat all of them here again, especially as we are short of time, but I will place it on the record that we disagree with the Conservatives on this matter. We think that home-school contracts can be an extremely useful tool for working with parents, but we do not think it appropriate to use them in orders as an admissions policy because we fear, regardless of what the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, that that would be used to exclude difficult students and families and it would be entirely contrary both to the spirit and the letter of the code, of which we spoke in favour in a previous debate. I will finish now so that we can hear from the Minister.

Jim Knight: Home-school agreements are specifically prohibited from being linked to the school admissions process by section 111 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. This amendment seeks to invalidate that. I agree largely with what the hon. Member for Brent, East has just said. It is not a contract in the legal sense and although schools may and probably should encourage parents to sign the agreement, parents are not required to do so. Whether a child obtains a place at a school should not be determined by the willingness of their parents to sign an agreement, although they can be invited to sign one after their child has been admitted to the school.
The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said that he did not believe that any parent would refuse to sign. I disagree. There may be circumstances in which parents refuse to sign, which could create some difficult circumstances in respect of the authority’s requirement to educate the child.

John Hayes: I make the same intervention on the Minister that I was going to make on the hon. Member for Brent, East. It seems that as a matter of justice, if people know where they stand at the beginning of their child’s career in a school, things are better for all concerned. If we deal with the matter when something has gone wrong, people might claim that they were not clear about what was expected of them. That is what we are interested in: clarity and fairness.

Jim Knight: I agree that there should be that clarity, which we discussed in respect of discipline and behaviour earlier, but my concern is that a child should not be refused because of a parent’s unwillingness. There may be issues other than a refusal to sign—they may not have the language or literary skills to understand the agreements. In respect of parents with other languages and so on, it can create all sorts of problems if we create such an imposition—

It being twenty-five past Ten o’clock, The Chairman proceeded, pursuant to Standing Order 83D and the Order of the Committee [28 March], as amended[9 May], to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.

Question put, That the clause be read a second time.

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 14.

Question accordingly negatived.

It being after twenty-five minutes past Ten o’clock,The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at One o’clock.